Words
by dimestoredramatic
Summary: Words aren't really worth anything, no matter what his English teacher says. Nothing is really worth anything.


Disclaimer: Actually, I don't own Drake and Josh.

* * *

I don't know much about words.

They filter in through my head as they're spoken, but I don't ever really know what they mean. To be honest, I don't believe that my English teacher does either, but she still uses them all the time. "Words," she says reverently, "are my passion. Each time I write, the words just come to me and I know I have a gift with them. Words love me."

Love is a word she likes to use a lot, but sometimes I wonder if she even knows its definition.

*

I don't speak a lot, because I don't believe in words. Words have failed me, they never serve their purpose. For a while now, I've been trying to use the word 'stop', but no one ever listens.

She never listens.

*

I get my report, and to nobody's surprise, I'm failing nearly everything. My mother doesn't even bother trying to hide her shock when it shows up that I'm passing English.

"You're getting seventy-six percent in English!?" she exclaims, incredulously. Then, trying to hide her blatant shock, she says, "I'm very proud of you, sweetie."

She's proud. Of me.

I want to break something.

*

"I love you," she whispers, and there's that word again, the one I hate more than anything. I'm shying away, writhing, trying to get away, but I don't use words because she's never listened. "You've done well," she says sweetly, "A B in English. Your parents must be so pleased."

I shiver and I try to jerk away, but I've never been able to before and I won't be able to now. She strokes a few stray tears away from my cheek and I hadn't even realized I was crying.

"Just remember," she smiles into my hair, kissing down my neck. "Not a word to anyone, or that brother of yours dies. Besides, it's not like I don't reward you. You could never have gotten that grade on your own."

I shut my eyes as she puts her spindly hands all over me and try to remember when I became so selfless.

*

"You're so quiet all the time. It's like I don't even know you."

And finally, someone has noticed, after three whole months. Someone has noticed that I've lost my faith in words. I should acknowledge his noticing with words, congratulate a job well done.

I shrug.

"No, really, like, you used to be the craziest guy ever and now I rarely hear you string more than two words together at a time. Are you mad at me, or something? Giving me the silent treatment?"

I very nearly laugh at that; with that logic, I'm giving the world the silent treatment. It fits, because I am so very angry at the world right now. I shake my head, force a smile. Clap him on the shoulder and climb into my bed, curling up facing the wall.

I can feel his eyes burning holes in my back for a long time before he finally clambers in to his own bed across the room.

*

I'm trying to fall asleep one night when I feel something touch my waist and I scream, not because I think it will do any good, but because I can't help it, because I can't stand to have someone touching me there. "Shut up," my sister hisses, "It's only me."

I wonder what prank she's trying to pull now, but to my surprise, all she says is, "I had a nightmare. I wanted to sleep with you."

I think maybe she's lying, so I won't figure out her prank too soon, but I, myself, am so accustomed to sleeping through nightmares alone that I can't send her away.

I open my blankets silently to let her crawl in, and try not to flinch at the feeling of bare flesh against mine. The difference between my nightmares and hers is that mine are real.

*

My English mark is up to an eighty now and my mother is ecstatic. I look in a mirror and wonder why no one else has noticed how disgusting I look. I'm pale and thin and sickly. I want my reflection gone, but then, I sort of want myself gone too.

*

There are thin lines on my wrist, but no one notices, not even my teacher as she forcibly removes my long sleeved shirts. She grips my wrists tightly above my head, but never notices, never feels the wounds reopening and seeping my sticky blood all over her slender hands.

"God, you're so perfect," she says, with almost the same fervor that she usually reserves for words.

My parched lips crack as I laugh and my throat protests, not used to making sound. My teacher slaps me and demands to know what's funny, but I don't even really know myself.

"Life," I answer, finally, the first word I've spoken in months. "Life is funny."

As I say it, I wonder who the very first person to use the word 'life' was. What language was the person speaking? What did the person think the word meant?

I wonder if the person was thinking of an existence like mine when he or she invented the word life; I don't think that person was.

There are a lot of words that don't apply to my life.

There are a lot of words that don't apply to anything at all.

*

It bites into my flesh and it's ecstasy, that feeling, I'm here, I'm real and I'm not dead but I'd like to be. That feeling is the best part of my life right now and I won't pretend that I don't realize how pathetic that is. When I feel this, she's gone, she's never coming back and I can't feel her hands, they're not there, she's gone, she's off me and I can't think straight and it's all a blur of meshed together thoughts but I know things are okay.

*

My mark gets higher and higher but I'd rather fail than go through this. If she hadn't threatened my brother, this would be over in a second, except I wonder if it really would be, because after all this time I'm not sure I'd be able to admit to anyone, because what if they blame me, and what if my brother hates me and I jus t couldn't deal.

I'd kill myself, but then I'm not sure if that still means that she'd kill my brother. As much as I'd like to die, I want my brother to live more and it's just not fair, because he gets everything and I help him to have everything and the one thing I want is so simple and no one else wants it, but I can't have it.

We talked about karma in English today, and I don't really buy into it, but if it's real I must have done some pretty horrendous things in one of my past lives.

I wonder if she chose that lesson just for me.

*

She's dead.

There's nothing I can say to that, but she's dead and I don't know what to do with myself because I'm free, and that means I can finally kill myself, but if she's really gone, do I still need to kill myself?

It came as quite a shock, and I should feel so bad, because I've been wishing her dead for months now, but Josh tells me, "Her husband did it, he's in jail now," and I know what it's like to be abused and she was abused to death, and well, shouldn't I sympathize?

It's a horrible thing that happened to her, and it's unfortunate that she had to take it out on me.

Later, I have a nightmare and realize that I still want to die.

*

I'm ready and I've decided on poison, because I may be leaving my family, but I still care about them, and I don't want to make them see all that blood.

My wrists are neatly bandaged and hidden under baggy long sleeves and the moment I've been waiting for for what seems like weeks is finally here.

I consider writing a note, but words are meaningless anyway.

It's actions that matter in the end, and there are some actions no words can describe. They can say I was molested, but what does that really mean, what does anything really mean?

That word, it tells you what happened to me, but it doesn't tell you the emotions I felt every single time, the fear, the worthlessness, the anger, the guilt.

It doesn't mean anything and words don't mean anything and maybe that's one thing we have in common.

I hold the bottle to my lips.

I'm gone, and there are no words.


End file.
